


the prince shall rise

by tobrokenstone



Category: Carnivale, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Drinking, Boy King!Sam, Crossover, F/M, Grace Vampirism, M/M, Multi, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 20:24:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobrokenstone/pseuds/tobrokenstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is Sam, this is the kid he raised and even with the time apart Dean still knew all of his expressions. Now there are unfamiliar expressions creeping onto Sam's face, new flashes of pain and hurt and betrayal. There's a new darkness there, too, and that scares Dean the most.</p><p>(knowledge of carnivàle not required -- see inside)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this fic doesn't belong to a formal big bang, but it was done big bang style. click [here](http://sofiebojakshiya.livejournal.com/1242.html?format=light) for the lj masterpost. the art masterpost is [here ](http://sofiebojakshiya.livejournal.com/2026.html?format=light)(art contains spoilers!). 
> 
> if you're not familiar with carnivàle, i've written a brief summary of the mythology and added it as a second chapter. read that and you should be fine!

He think it's just postpartum depression at first.

 

He'd done research, of course he had, he wanted to know what they were getting into when they decided to have a baby. They'd been so happy when she'd gotten pregnant, made sure to buy everything they needed, got the nursery all painted in soft yellow and protective wards carved so, so carefully into the crown moulding. He drove her to her appointments, made her hot chocolate and a hot water bottle when her back hurt.

 

So, he thinks, it must just be postpartum depression. She wasn't sad or depressed or exhausted, but she was avoiding him and she snapped at him for nothing, and maybe it wasn't typical postpartum depression, so that must have been what it was, right?

 

But it doesn't get better, it's just getting worse, and he doesn't want to call Dean. Dean, who had been so happy when his baby brother called him and said his wife was going to have a baby of their own. Dean, who had been the beaming best man at their wedding. Dean, who had kept hunting but stopped drinking and who came by and visited once in a while. Dean, who has always wanted nothing more than for Sam to be happy. He doesn't want to worry Dean if he doesn't have to and it's just postpartum, it's fine, Jess is going to be _fine_.

 

It takes her grabbing the hot cast iron pan off the stove and swinging it at his head―she's not exactly small, and she's strong―before he calls Dean.

 

It takes her _trying to kill him_ and picking up their son and screaming at him to _get out, get out of this house right now, get away from my son_ for him to stumble outside and pull his phone from his pocket with shaking hands. Sam explains what happened, sitting on the curb in tears, hurt and scared and confused.

 

Dean's close; he's stuck to hunts in the surrounding states, mostly, since that first phone call from Sam telling him to come visit. He gets there in a few hours, and he doesn't say anything at first, just gets Sam into the car with a hand on his shoulder and drives them away until they're parked on a dusty road. Sam rambles that he'd done all the tests he could when she started acting wrong, but nothing happened, he couldn't find anything wrong, he doesn't know what's going on or what happened to the girl he met in college and fell in love with and they had a new baby, they were supposed to be _happy_.

 

When Dean walks into the house to try and talk, she comes at him with a kitchen knife.

 

They come back later that night, and there's a police car in the driveway.

 

She's thrown all of Sam's things out onto the lawn. There are books and clothes everywhere and apparently a neighbour called the cops when they saw a box of books thrown out of a second-floor window. Sam tries to explain to the officer, tells him that his wife was tired, she's just postpartum, she'd gotten angry with Sam and nothing was wrong, and he wants to talk to his wife.

 

But she's gone. She'd thrown his things out the windows, packed a few bags, and left with their son.

 

Her car's found, abandoned, outside of Los Angeles the next morning. Dean and Sam chase her, of course they chase her, she has Sam's son and clearly something's so horribly wrong with her and they want to help. They find her, once, staying in an apartment in Detroit. Sam gets a look at his son, his son who seems healthy and happy and he's grown so much and he looks like the best parts of Sam and Jess in one.

 

He gets a look at his son before his wife shoots him in the chest.

 

*

 

Dean doesn't know what he's supposed to do. He doesn't even call an ambulance because by the time he's dragged Sam far enough away that Jess has stopped shooting, Sam's not moving, and Dean can't find a pulse.

 

And it's running through his head like a mantra, _don't be dead don't be dead don't be dead please don't be dead dead dead dead,_ and he can't think straight but he can't find a pulse and there's so much _blood_.

 

So he picks up his brother, _not his corpse, not his corpse_ , and carries him down the stairs, out of the building, gets him into the Impala before anyone can see the two of them (and he's glad it's late, glad that there are so few people on the street and no one can see the blood).

 

He tries to ignore the part of himself that know his brother's dead, shoves it down and keeps it down until they're out of town. Dean pulls off the highway, drives down a dirt road until he finds an old abandoned cabin. He lays his brother out on the bed, on the bare mattress, and sits next to him on a chair. Stares at Sam's chest, at the blood that long since stopped pulsing from the hole right over his heart.

 

Something has to come next. He just has to decide what.

 

*

 

As he pulls the Impala up to the crossroads, he thinks that of course, of course this is what he'd choose. What else? Sammy comes first. Gotta keep Sammy safe. It hadn't taken that long, really, to choose. As soon as he's pulled himself together again, washed the blood from his hands, wiped the tears from his face, he'd known what he was going to do.

 

The demon tells him he's getting three years and not a day more and he thinks _well, could've been worse_ and kisses her to finalize the deal.

 

And he knows it's worth it. Knows Sammy's worth any sacrifice he can make.

 

*

 

Sam's different, when he comes back. Not at first; at first he's concerned and angry and worried and he's Sam, just Sam. He's furious at Dean for making the deal, like Dean had known he would be. But he gets quieter after a while, doesn't keep up the teasing and the banter and Dean isn't sure what it is, if it's Jess or if it's Dean's deal or if it's everything. Sam talks less and less and Dean's starting to feel like his only companion in the car is the radio, static breaking through as they move out of broadcast range of each station as they drive.

 

They stop looking for Jess. Sam doesn't mention her, not once, doesn't say her name or make any mention of her. Like he'd just wiped her from his mind―which Dean's sure isn't the case, considering how often he catches Sam snapping his head toward blond women who look like they could be her. But he doesn't look for her. Dean still does, sometimes, keeps track of her as well as he can because he wants his brother to have a family, wants to have a chance to be an uncle. Hopes that maybe, things can be alright and they can be happy. Sam throws himself into research and hunting.

 

Then suddenly he's talking about Jess again, but not to Dean, not in a way that Dean likes. Sam starts questioning the things they kill for information about what might have happened to his wife. Dean watches, but he can't help, doesn't know how to keep his brother from going down this road and he thinks about watching their father fall apart after their mother burned and how this is _so much worse._ Because John's last memory of his wife alive was of the woman he loved and who loved him, but Sam's remembering the woman he loved with everything he had turning a gun on him in front of their son and how the last thing she told him was how disgusting he was, what a _monster_ he was.

 

Losing his wife may have killed something inside John, but his wife never killed him, never turned a gun on him and shot him through the chest.

 

Dean can tell how much it's shattered his brother, how different Sam is now. He'd have to be blind to not see it; this is Sam, this is the kid he raised and even with the time apart Dean still knew all of his expressions. Now there are unfamiliar expressions creeping onto Sam's face, new flashes of pain and hurt and betrayal. There's a new darkness there, too, and that scares Dean the most.

 

But it's not always bad. There are good times, too; lots of good times, when they're driving down the highway to the next hunt, when they're laughing and shoving each other jokingly after a job well done. Dean relishes those times, the times when he knows with certainty that he did the right thing, selling his soul for Sam and the thought of being dead in less than three years isn't all that bad.

 

There's one moment that stands out to Dean, years later. They're heading back to the Impala after a hunt, bloody but on their feet. There's blood in Sam's mouth from a punch to the jaw. Dean doesn't remember what they were talking about, but in response to something Dean said, Sam turns to him and says, “Thou shalt be strong,” grinning with teeth covered in crimson. He has no idea why, but his blood runs cold at that.

 

They decide that they should take a break after a hunt goes bad and Sam almost gets killed. He'd been focusing too much on trying to figure out if the demon knew anything about Jess or was just bluffing, and he hadn't heard the second coming up behind him. Dean declares Sam in need of some time off and suggests Bobby's. They haven't been in years, and Sam always liked it there with all the books.

 

So they drive off to South Dakota and stay there for a few weeks, Sam poring through the shelves and stacks of books, Dean doing maintenance on the Impala, and Bobby splitting his time between work and trying to talk to Sam (he lost his wife after Karen tried to kill him, he points out, so maybe he can sympathize). When that doesn't work he talks to Dean instead, and they try to understand what's going on. Dean never forgets the heartbroken expression on Bobby's face when he had found out what really happened, that Jess hadn't just _tried_ to kill Sam.

 

It's quiet and comfortable, but Sam and Dean aren't used to being in once place, and they get restless. Bobby promises to keep an eye out for anything that might be related to Jess, makes Dean promise to keep in touch, and waves them off as they drive off.

 

 

*****

 

 

Sam's always felt a certain darkness inside off him. Like there's some part of him that's always felt like he's on the wrong path, on the wrong side, like he should be doing something _else_. The difference is, it had always been so much easier to ignore, before. He'd had some doubts, sure, but for the most part he'd been confident that what he was doing was right. But now that strange dark thing living in his chest and creeping through his veins feels ignored, and he's having trouble not paying attention.

 

It doesn't feel right, really, but it feels _good_ , the first time he flings a monster across a room with his mind.

 

And it scares him, it does. He always wanted to be normal, and this? This is not normal. Humans can't do this sort of thing. He's a whole new level of freak and he knows it.

 

As good as it feels to use these powers, it feels better to be back on the road with his brother again, to see Dean smile and sing along obnoxiously to his music. Dean won't understand and Sam knows it, won't see his powers as anything less than something inhuman and wrong, so Sam decides he won't tell him. He'll use the powers when he's alone, when Dean isn't there to see, because they could come in handy on hunts, but he won't say a thing to Dean.

 

The loss of Jess still feels like a gaping wound, like he's walking around without half of himself, but she's gone and he's accepted it. The thing he can't accept is what happened to her. He can't accept it until he understands it. He knows he can't lose Dean, couldn't bear to have Dean find out that his brother's maybe a little less than human and leave, but he has to know what happened.

 

 

*****

 

 

Dean hasn't seen much of John lately, not since he got the call from Sam that he was going to be an uncle. He'd told his father and John had beamed, told Dean to take the Impala and go be with his brother. Their dad had visited once after Daniel was born, shaken Jess' hand and hugged Sam, but the conversation was stilted and awkward. There was more wrong between John and Sam than one visit could fix and they all knew it. After Jess, Dean and John agreed that John being there would only make matters worse, so he stayed away.

 

He and Dean keep in touch. A phone call, an email, a text, something, every few days, just so they knew the other was still alive, still out there. But then John goes quiet and Dean doesn't hear from him for a week, not since John was heading out to take care of that Woman in White. Something doesn't feel quite right and Dean starts thinking about how to tell Sam they're going to California.

 

Things are almost better, almost normal, once they have something to throw themselves into. It's easy to pretend things are back to normal, driving across the country for hunts and trying to find some trace of John. Dean can't help but worry when Sam starts to talk about having premonitions―hasn't Sam been through enough without having freaky psychic powers? Then they meet Max and maybe it's not just Sam and that's even more worrisome, that maybe there's something bigger going on here.

 

Then John's suddenly there, and it's all a whirlwind of Azazel and Meg and the Colt and then

Dean's waking from a coma to find his father by the side of his bed. He remembers the truck and the Impala crumpling and then he's waking up in a hospital. It seems like no time at all between John telling him that if he couldn't save Sam he'd have to kill him and Sam rushing in to tell him their father's dead.

 

Dean starts laughing bitterly when he realizes that John didn't know about Dean's deal, and Azazel certainly wasn't about to tell him. When Dean's comes back the clock's still ticking. John gave up his soul and the Colt to get Dean his last two years.

 

It's a mercy when Dean sees John walk out of the Devil's Gate a year later and smile at him. He only has a year left, but at least his father only had to pay with a year.

 

Dean realizes he was wrong about that as well another year later, as Alastair talks about how time bends between dimensions while he carves patterns into Dean's spine.

 

 

*****

 

 

He has to get Dean back.

 

He's going to get Dean back.

 

He doesn't care anymore what happens to him but he's lost too much family, far too much, lost their mother and then Jess and then their dad and now Dean and it's too much and he's _going to get Dean back_. To hell with whatever consequences there might be.

 

When Ruby shows up, it had been a month and he had absolutely nothing, no leads, nowhere to even start. Making a deal had been his last idea and that hadn't worked at all. So when Ruby started talking about going after Lilith, he agreed. Lilith will either get Dean back for him or Sam can get revenge.

 

The blood is just another weapon, he keeps telling himself. He's only drinking demon blood because it makes him stronger, because it'll help him avenge Dean. It's not because he likes it. It's a weapon, nothing more. A weapon.

 

 _Today is Daniel’s birthday,_ he thinks suddenly, and suddenly the oppressive heat of the motel room isn't important, because all he can think about is a house in California in the spring, the house his brother had fixed up for him and his wife, and― 

_“Let's name him after my granddad,” Jess had said one day, out of the blue. Her back was hurting more and more, so Sam had tried to give her a massage, but it quickly became cuddling on the couch and watching TV. “Let's name him Daniel.”_

_Sam had smiled, stroked his hands over her swollen belly, pressed his nose to her temple. “Daniel. Yeah, it's a good name. What do you think, Daniel?” And he grinned like the sun at the responding kick._

He pushes that memory aside, buries it with all the other shards of his time with Jess; doesn't think about how “Jessica” meant “God's grace” (and she was so, so graceful) and “Daniel” meant “God is my judge” (but Sam couldn't see how even God could judge him, small and pink and perfect), but “Samuel” meant “God has heard” and God never had listened to Sam's words, had he? The bastard. God had never listened to any of the prayers he sent, not as a child wanting a stable life, not as an adult begging for his family back.

 

Maybe God only listens to humans.

 

Sam shoves it down, shoves down his tattered life and the son who's out there, somewhere, with a mother who's lost her mind, just as he shoves Ruby down onto the cheap motel bed. As soon as he's on the bed she's pushing back, until he's sitting and she's on his lap.

“Alright, baby. You ready to do this?” she whispers against his lips. “You'll feel so good after, I promise.” Suddenly he's nervous again, afraid to do this, to take this final step. Because he knows, deep down, that even if he doesn't quite understand what's going to happen, there's no going back, once he does this. But he nods, and when he picks up her knife from the pillow next to them, the shaking in his hand is barely noticeable.

Ruby guides his hand, places the blade against her arm, smiles gently when he puts pressure behind it. Sometimes, when she looks at him like that, soft and content, he thinks she might actually love him. Most of the time he isn't sure how they feel about each other.

Blood wells from the cut, beading and starting to trail down her arm, and Sam is transfixed by the red against the pale skin for a moment before licking up the spilled line and latching his mouth over the wound. It's thick and hot and burns, but pleasantly, like the burn of good whiskey sliding down his throat. He groans, quietly, and Ruby runs her fingers through his hair for a moment before it hits him and suddenly he's lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

And he understands.

He understands what he is, who he is, finally understands who he really, truly is, and he smiles. Ruby's lying next to him and he rolls over on top of her and kisses her, hard, before sliding down to bite into her shoulder. He laps at the blood for a moment before sitting up and looking at her.

“So you're my Prophet, huh?” And she grins at him, wide and suggestive.

“Get back down here, Prince,” she says, pulling him down by his hair, and he goes.

 

*

 

“There's something I don't quite get,” Sam asks later, lying next to Ruby in the bed and idly trailing his fingers over her arm, her shoulders, tracing the line of her collarbone. “By the hand of the Prince, the Prophet dies. Upon his death, the Prince shall rise,” he says, slowly and carefully, pulling the works from some strange new corner of his memory. Ruby opens her eyes and looks up at him at that.

 

“The Gospel of Matthias. You get that with the rest of your boon, Prince?” she asks, and Sam nods. “So what's bugging you?”

 

“It's just that, well, I got my boon, right? That's what that line is referring to?” He pauses, continues when Ruby nods. “But I didn't kill you. I, you know. Drank your blood. So how did I get my boon without killing my Prophet?” Ruby just laughs, gentle.

 

“'Cause you're special, Sam. Maybe you don't see how special yet, but you will. Things are a little different for you. Don't worry about it,” she says, and pulls him down for a kiss. “Just go to sleep.”

 

 

*****

 

 

He claws his way out of his grave to September sunlight.

 

Something feels different inside him, bright and shining in a way that makes no sense at all but he pushes it down because it's not important, the only important thing is finding Sammy, getting back to his brother.

 

As the gas station shakes and the windows burst in around him, something in his chest is _singing_ , loud and hot and his head hurts from the noise and he's afraid but somehow, something feels right about the light and sound.

 

Sitting around a table in a basement he hears the name _Castiel_ and starts because that shine in his chest flutters in recognition.

 

He meets the angel in a barn and his entire being feels drawn to this creature that he never believed existed. But he knows better than to trust anyone but family, even as a tiny voice in his head wonders if he can even trust his family anymore.

_(Nearly a year later, he's standing on a pier with the angel next to him, and he knows he's dreaming but it's comfortable, peaceful. “I stitched you back together,” the angel says suddenly, pressing an open palm to the human's chest. Dean looks at him in surprise, and Castiel continues. “After hell. I stitched your soul back together with strands of my grace.”_

_“So it's you? This thing in my chest, it's bits of you?” Dean asks softly, and Cas doesn't quite smile, but his eyes do. Dean folds one hand around the back of Cas' neck and draws him close, rests their foreheads together._

_“It's me.”)_

 

 

*****

 

 

It's Dean's first proper, normal hunt after hell. No seals, no Heaven and Hell, just some standard demons.  He's gotten sick of wondering what the hell's been going on with his brother while he was gone and sick of thinking about how an angel pulled him out of hell and how apparently demons are trying to start the apocalypse. He just wants to get out and kill something with his brother at his side and be able to pretend that everything's normal.

 

He should really know better. He's Dean Winchester; of course this simple thing can't go right.

 

It's just a couple of demons, nothing too serious, but they get tossed around a bit, naturally, because it seems like they can't kill anything without getting tossed around. They kill the demons and they're laughing about how they somehow managed to get covered in salt and holy water somewhere in there and Dean's thinks _maybe I could be happy_.

 

But then they're walking out of the warehouse and it's night, it's dark, and Dean looks over at Sam under the murky light of the streetlight and his heart stops.

 

There's blood, trailing down the side of Sam's face, from where one of the demons threw him against an old wooden crate and one of the boards scraped him, cut his skin.

 

And Dean isn't moving, isn't breathing, can't feel his heartbeat, can't feel anything, because all he can see is that blood and it's _blue_.

 

It's dark and the light's dim but it's definitely blue, bright blue, not that familiar deep red that Dean's so used to seeing on his brother. And he never thought he'd think this, but he suddenly misses seeing Sam covered in red because he knew how to deal with that, knew how to fix it.

 

He has no idea what to do about this.

 

Sam realizes that Dean isn't moving and turns around, face still bright with laughter, but it falls when he sees Dean's expression (and Dean wonders, distantly, what his face even looks like. He isn't sure how this emotion would look on a face. He hadn't seen human faces in anything but pain for forty years before this past week, so he's having some trouble coming up with an idea of this face).

 

“Dean? What's wrong?” Sam asks and Dean barely hears him, because his brain's come back online and he's trying to come up with a possibility but he can't think of anything. Sam's sleeve is still soaked through with holy water and there's salt everywhere so it can't be a demon and Dean can't come up with a single option for what might be pretending to be his brother.

 

He has no idea what this creature in front of him is but he's reaching for his gun.

 

“What are you and what have you done with my brother,” he growls out and pointedly doesn't think about the look of surprise on this thing's face.

 

“Dean, it's me. It's seriously me, what are you talking about?” Sam's hands are up, open, making it clear he's unarmed and he's backing up, toward the Impala. He suddenly freezes, like he realizes what's going on, and absently wipes at the blood on his face. “Okay,” the words start to tumble out, “Dean, I was going to tell you, I just wasn't sure how, but you have to let me explain, okay?” And Dean doesn't answer, just tightens his grip on his gun. His hands don't shake, he's not afraid, he's furious and he's going to get his brother back if he has to _make_ this thing talk.

 

“Look, this happened while you were dead, okay? I needed to kill Lilith and this had to be done for me to be strong enough. But I promise you, it's still me. What do you want me to say? Something only I would know? That I gave you that amulet instead of dad because he let me down and you didn't? That I was the one who got the army man stuck in the ashtray in the Impala but you were the one who shoved Legos in the vents? Seriously, Dean, it's me.” And he's babbling, placating and pleading, and Dean thinks about how Sam's been more animated since Dean came back than he had been for ages before, but the blood's the only thing different. Sam had seemed exactly like his brother, and Dean never would have questioned it if not for that blood. He lowers his gun, slowly, and finally tucks it back into his waistband. Sam lets out the breath he was holding.

 

“You're gonna explain this. Right now,” Dean says firmly, grabbing the flask from his jacket and taking a long swig.

 

*

 

Dean's sitting in the front seat of the Impala, alone except for the bottle of whiskey in his hand, twenty minutes down the road from Bobby's. He'd dropped Sam off and pulled back out of the yard, needed time away from Sam, needed to think about what had happened and how his brother was something else now, something not human. How he didn't think he could be completely okay with that, with his brother being a creature, but how maybe he was just going to have to deal with being uncomfortable, with wondering what he could have done differently to save Sam.

 

There's a rustle of feathers and “Hello, Dean,” from the passenger's seat and Dean isn't really surprised. He doesn't really feel like anything could surprise him right now, not after Sam.

 

“Hey, Cas. Just so you know, if it's not about Sam, I don't care,” he says, and takes another drink. He thinks that the company might have been nice, on any other night. He's warming to the angel already, but he might just have to shoot the son of a bitch if he tries to get Dean to chase down another seal right now.

 

“I was told to give you these,” Cas says, and he sounds unhappy about it, somehow, and Dean looks over at him. Cas is holding out a small bundle of papers and frowning, like he doesn't really want to be handing them over, like they're something precious to Castiel. “I would suggest you not share them with Sam.” Dean puts the bottle down, takes the papers, and glances over them, sees words like _Avatars_ and _Creature of Darkness_ and looks back up to Cas.

 

“What is this?”

 

“Notes from another hunter. It should help explain what's happened to Sam,” Cas explains, and then he's gone again. Dean grumbles to himself about _fucking angels, can't stick around to explain themselves,_ and starts reading.

 

It's obviously old, this research. The writing is messy, rushed, but Dean's been reading worse since he was a kid, so it's not a problem. He figures that these were notes, meant to go into a book, maybe, and that what Dean's holding's not the full set, not by a long shot. He's been given rough notes, and only a specific set of them, and Dean wonders what he should make of that. But the notes tell him that there are people called Avatars, that they have strange powers, that they have blue blood. He wonders about  Houses of Light and Dark, because they’re only mentioned, and Dean's pretty sure that that section would be helpful. Dean takes another long drink, slumps backwards in the seat, tells himself that _okay, Sammy’s not human, but it doesn't sound like there's much you could've done about it, and maybe this isn't all bad. Who knows, might come in handy on hunts._

 

He's not sure how much he believes it, but he keeps telling himself that false hope is still hope until he can handle the thought of driving back to Bobby's.

 

*

 

Dean gets back to Bobby's a few hours later. He'd re-read the pages of notes and carefully stashed them in a corner the Impala's trunk before heading back. He walks inside and Sam's still awake, sitting on the couch in the study, but Dean glances at him and looks away, walks upstairs into the guest room instead. He hopes desperately that he'll wake up in the morning and this would have all been a bad dream. He's gotten good at convincing himself that it's okay, he can just go to sleep, it'll be better in the morning. He doesn't even think about how much bullshit it is anymore.

 

 

*****

 

 

Sam yells in frustration as he throws the motel lamp across the room. It's satisfying, the crash and shatter of it.

 

“What's gotten your panties in a twist?” Ruby asks from where she's lounging on the bed, flipping idly through a book. Sam clenches his fists once, twice, and finally scrubs his hands over his face.

 

“Why can't he just trust me for two seconds? I'm trying to help people here. Why won't he just see that?” He's somewhere between anger and exhaustion and hurt. He doesn't quite know what to do with his body, pacing haltingly and throwing his hands up in the air.

 

“Would you just stop it with Dean already? He's not gonna come around. We're just going to have to do this without him and his pet angel,” Ruby says, flicking her eyes up from her book to glance at Sam and then rolling them.

 

“But I don't want to! I don't want to do this without him because he's my brother. I want to do this _with_ him,” he very nearly whines, sitting down heavily on the bed.

 

“Well, too bad!” Ruby says sharply, slamming the book closed, and Sam starts, blinks in surprise. “If he's not gonna accept this, we're just gonna do it on our own, okay? We need to kill Lilith, and Dean clearly just isn't up to it, so we have to do this ourselves.” Sam's quiet for a moment, looking at the floor, before he sighs and looks back up to Ruby.

 

“You're right. You're right, we just have to do this. He'll understand when we gank that bitch,” Sam says, and feels that familiar beat in his throat, the surge of the dark spreading through his blood with every step he makes down this path.

 

 

*****

 

 

“Be honest with me,” Dean says, glancing over at Cas. The angel had agreed, however reluctantly, to drive with Dean to the next seal. “This thing with Sam. The powers or whatever.” Dean pauses, and Cas turns to face him

 

“Yes, Dean?” His tone is gentle and Dean is all at once so glad to have him there. It's such a pleasant change, having a friend.

 

“Is this going to end well? For any of us?” Cas is quiet for a moment, watching Dean and considering.

 

“I don't know. I don't think we can know, yet. All we can do is try,” he finally says. Dean glaces over again, sighs.

 

“Wait and see, huh?” Dean says, clenching his fists on the steering wheel.

 

“Wait and see.”

 

 

*

 

 

“C'mon, man, you don't have to just zap off right after we save a seal. Stick around, let's celebrate,” Dean does his best to keep the pleading tone from his voice, but he thinks some creeps in anyway. It's been ages since he and Sam had done anything fun and Dean misses it, going out and drinking with someone he cares about. Cas is quickly becoming one of the few people he'd like to spend an evening with. But Cas isn't looking convinced, has that look that Dean's learning to recognize as 'about to fly off'.

 

“Dean, I have other duties. I should be elsewhere,” Cas tries to say, but Dean starts to drag him toward the Impala.

 

“Seriously, Cas. Have you ever had a burger?” Cas shakes his head slowly. “Okay. You need to try some food, got it? Let's go.”

 

 

*****

 

 

It's late, and Dean's asleep, and Sam just needs to get out. He slipped out of the motel room as soon as he knew Dean wouldn't notice, as soon as the alcohol finally settled into Dean's blood and he drifted off. Sam knows he shouldn't go far, but he can’t help it, just needs to be outside and move. He walks down the street until he finds a small park. The bench is just what he’s looking for―back from the road, mostly hidden under the branches of a willow.

 

It's not that he isn't glad to have Dean back. He is, he's ecstatic. Getting Dean back is more than he'd hoped for, really. He just wants things to go back to how they were, without Dean constantly telling him what to do and expecting him to just follow orders. Dean's been spending so much time with Cas lately, too, when Sam goes off with Ruby. They're splitting off into pairs, and Sam finds that maybe he doesn't mind so much. He loves his brother to death, but sometimes liking him is another matter entirely. It's those nights when Sam just needs to get out, breathe some fresh air, and clear his head.

 

So he's alone, and it's closer to dawn than dusk. There's no snow on the ground but there's a bite to the air and hoar frost on the tree around him. He doesn't feel the cold, though, only feels the warmth that floods through him as he licks the drops of Ruby's blood from his hand. Sam closes his eyes and smiles, closing the flask and sliding it back into the hidden pocket of his jacket. A few more minutes, he thinks, and then he'll walk back to the motel room and get some sleep. There's a dark thing in his chest that he's only beginning to become aware of, but it's sated for now. He can go back to the car and his brother soon without it roiling in his throat.

 

There's a moment where he considers staying. Thinks about lying down and sleeping on the bench, not going back to Dean at all. But it passes as quickly as it came and he's unnerved, unsettled at the thought of leaving his brother, and he stands, heads back to where Dean's passed out.

 

 

*****

 

 

It's late in the spring when Dean looks over at Cas sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala, and realizes he just maybe has feelings for the angel that aren't exactly platonic. Cas' hair is blowing in the wind from the open window and he's humming along quietly to the music Dean's playing and Dean suddenly struck by how gorgeous Cas is. It occurs to him how unbelievable it is that this creature, for all that he's made it clear how he feels about cars and how he must have better things to do is sitting here, driving with Dean down this road after a hunt. That's he's there simply because Dean likes having him there.

 

But he's Dean Winchester, and these thoughts are quickly moving into chick-flick territory, so he shoves them to the back of his mind and starts singing along obnoxiously loud to the music. Cas looks over at him and smiles and Dean's stomach flips but fuck, he's not thinking about his possible attraction to ( _and oh God, feelings for_ ) his best friend ( _who is an angel of the fucking Lord_ ) while said friend is sitting across the bench seat of the Impala from him.

 

They get back to the motel and Cas flits off to take care of angel business. Sam's not there but his duffel is, so Dean gets some supper and figures he'll shower and get some sleep, and they'll head out in the morning (and if Dean thinks about blue eyes and black hair and a tan trench coat sliding off slim shoulders while he jacks off in the shower, well, no one has to know).

 

It's the middle of summer before Dean decides he's done with not saying anything. He's seeing more of Cas than he is of Sammy these days and he's getting sick of trying to pretend that he's not ridiculously attracted to his best friend (and maybe a little bit in love with him, but fuck if he's saying that anytime soon).

 

He doesn't deserve Cas and he knows it, but he hopes that the two of them are comfortable enough with each other at this point for Cas to be able to accept it so they can move on and be friends. Dean figures he owes Cas the honesty. Being able to tell Cas the real reason why he'd appreciate Cas not getting up in his personal space quite so much would be nice.

 

They've just finished a hunt, a handful of demons trying to break a seal and doing a pretty piss-poor job of it. Dean hadn't been able to ignore how hot he was starting to find Cas smiting monsters. They're walking back to the Impala when Dean decides now's as good a time as any. They throw the weapons into the trunk and Dean grabs Cas' wrist before he can move around the car to get into the passenger's seat. Cas looks at Dean's hand on his wrist and then up to Dean, tilting his head in confusion.

 

“Look, Cas,” Dean starts, and then bites his lip. He's suddenly nervous, doesn't want to hear Cas' rough voice saying that he's sorry but he doesn't feel the same way and maybe it would be best for them to spend some time apart.

 

“Dean?” Cas asks quietly, and there's something in his voice that Dean thinks might be hope, and he thinks _fuck it_ and leans in to kiss Cas chastely. Cas gasps against his mouth but doesn't respond, and Dean feels something twist viciously in his gut and he's pulling away to apologize when Cas' hands suddenly come up, one cupping his cheek and the other tangling in his hair and he's kissing Dean back. When he has to pull back to catch his breath he realizes he's wrapped his arms around Cas' waist and Cas is murmuring his name, and Dean rests his forehead against Cas' briefly before going back in for another kiss. Cas is backed up against the trunk of the Impala and Dean lifts him up, sits him on it and slots himself between Cas' legs.

 

“Didn't think there was any way you'd want this,” Dean mumbles against Cas' mouth and Cas' eyes are meeting his with that intensity that never fails to make Dean uncomfortable.

 

“Of course I do, Dean. Of course I―” he cuts himself off, but Dean doesn't press for him to continue, just goes back in for another kiss, running his hands down Cas' back, up his sides, and it's so good to be able to touch him, just like this.

 

They stay like that, exchanging kisses in the hot summer night until Dean pulls back, slides Cas off the trunk of the car, and they drive back to the motel. There's no urgency in Dean. He's feeling surprisingly peaceful, only gets enough of their clothes off to sleep comfortably in before Cas pulls him under the covers.

 

They curl into each other and Dean lets himself have this, lets himself forget about his absent brother and the seals they've failed to save. Lets himself wrap himself around Cas, bury his nose in Cas' hair, feel Cas' head tuck into his shoulder.

 

“Sleep, Dean,” Cas murmurs. “I'll be here when you wake up, I promise.” Dean hums his agreement and drifts off soon after.

 

 

*****

 

 

Sam's looking around an old library for information on a hunt when he sees the man watching him from the stacks. Something about his eyes are knowing, like he can tell exactly what Sam is. The man's shoved against the shelf before Sam moves, and Sam has a knife to his neck moments later, throwing holy water in his face. The man stammers about the Gospel of Matthias, about Houses of Light and Dark, about bloodlines, about _by the hand of the Prince, the Prophet dies_. He stops when Sam slams him against the shelf, harder, and growls that he's better tell him _what the fuck you're talking about or you're going to regret it_. The man says he knows things Sam doesn't, knows things about what he is, knows what happened to Jess, why she went crazy.

 

That it's what happens, when a male child is born to an Avatar. That it was bound to happen if he ever had a son.

 

He barely hears the man as he keeps talking and he feels like there's something wrong with his eyes but energy is rushing through him and it feels black and good and _right._ He sees the man's neck twist around and watches him crumple to the floor. Sam smiles, smiles with eyes shining black and the holy water that splashed onto his hand turned red as blood.

 

 

*****

 

 

“There's something I was forbidden from telling you,” Cas says when they're lying in bed together, sweat cooling on Dean's chest. Dean groans.

 

“Why do I get the feeling you're not great at pillow-talk, dude?”

 

“Heaven kept things from you,” Cas continues, ignoring Dean's complaint. “There isn't only a Creature of Darkness. There's also a Creature of Light.” Dean frowns, considering.

 

“Yeah, saw something 'bout that in those notes. Not much help.”

 

“There are two Avatars born for each generation. One is light, one is dark. They're meant to be enemies, Dean.” But Dean doesn't want to hear this, can't hear this, rolls on top of Cas and kisses him so he'll stop talking before he says something Dean doesn't know how to face.

 

They don't talk about it again until things have gotten worse and not talking about it is no longer an option.

 

 

*****

 

 

“You did it. I mean, it was a little touch-and-go there for a while, but... you did it.” Dean can hear Ruby's voice through the door as he throws his shoulder into it, again and again.

 

“Yes, I did. We did.” That's Sam's voice, sounding happier than Dean's heard in a while. The door's about to give. Just a few more shoves.

 

“You opened the door. And now he's free at last. He's free at last!” The door finally gives and Dean rushes into the room to see Sam and Ruby and Lilith's body, the blood spreading into a thorny circle on the floor. And Sam's grinning, and there's blood in his mouth, and he's grabbing Ruby, spinning her around, kissing her. Dean's still in the doorway, stunned, when they turn to look at him.

 

“Hey Dean,” Sam says, smiling as the blood continues to spread, the circle closing quickly.

 

“Sammy, what―”

 

“Lucifer's coming, Dean.”

 

“Sam, what the fuck,” Dean manages to growl out, but his stomach's dropped and he feels numb because this can't be anything but what it looks like. Ruby's grinning at him and all he can do is turn to her, eyes wide.

 

“Daddy's coming to dinner, Dean,” she says, laughing in delight.

 

“Did... did you know, Sam?” Because clearly Dean's warning about the final seal is coming far too late, but maybe he was the last to find out.

 

“'Course, Dean. It had to be me. It always had to be me. I set him free, and he's gonna be so grateful. He'll repay me in ways you can't even imagine. We'll rule the world.”

 

All Dean can do is stare and choke out his brother's name, once, before Sam's taking Ruby's hand in his and they're gone in a blink. The circle's complete, now, and the room's getting brighter but Dean can't move, can't quite fathom what's just happened. Cas is suddenly at Dean's side, hand on his shoulder, and then they're by the side of the road next to the Impala. There's a column of light in the distance where Dean thinks the convent must have been.

 

Neither of them can find words. There's nothing to say in the face of this betrayal. Dean clears his throat but just looks at the ground instead. He climbs into the driver's seat of the Impala and slams the door shut behind him, grips the wheel until his knuckles are white and his hands are clenched too tightly to shake anymore. Cas slides hesitantly into the seat beside him. After a minute he slides closer until his thigh is pressed to Dean's. Dean leans into the touch the slightest amount, and closes his eyes. A few deep breaths and he's turning the key and driving away.

 

 

*****

 

 

Bobby opens the door, takes one look at Dean, and steps aside to let him in. Dean doesn't speak, doesn't make a sound before he's kicking his boots off and climbing the stairs. There's the slam of a door and a distant thud, the sound of a person throwing themselves onto a bed, then another noise that Bobbyrecognizes as Dean screaming into a pillow. He's about to head up the stairs after Dean before he realizes that Cas has appeared in the doorway behind him.

 

“What... what happened?” Bobby finally asks. Castiel grunts and slips past him, and slumps onto the couch in the den.

 

“Sam's gone,” the angel says. Bobby distantly wonders if his heart actually stopped, maybe this is what a heart attack feels like, before he stumbles to his desk and sits heavily. Castiel lifts his head and looks at him. “No, he's not dead.” Something in the angel's tone makes Bobby think that maybe dead would have been better than whatever did happen.

 

“Where is he, then?” Bobby asks hesitantly, and Cas' head slumps down again.

 

“We don't know. He could be anywhere, really,” he sounds so defeated, Bobby can't help but walk over and put a hand on Cas' shoulder and squeeze gently.

 

“Look, son, why don't you go upstairs with Dean for the night? You can tell me what happened in the morning.” Bobby hadn't quite expected to say that, hadn't realized that apparently he'd started thinking of this angel as one of his boys, but it doesn't seem worth thinking about, really. It feels about right. Apparently Bobby's developing a habit of bringing in strays. Castiel looks up at him cautiously and Bobby manages a smile.

 

“Yeah, I know about you and Dean. 'Course I'm fine with it. Now get up there.” Cas stares for a moment longer before nodding, slowly, and climbing the stairs.

 

Bobby waits to hear the door opening and closing again before he goes for the bottle of good whiskey in the desk drawer. Dead or not, he gets the feeling he should be mourning his youngest son. Alcohol's the only real way Bobby's come up with to grieve. So he sits back down at the desk and sips at a glass of whiskey and hopes his other two boys are alright after some sleep.

 

He knows they won't be. But he can hope.

 

*

 

Castiel eases the door open, steps into the room, and carefully closes the door behind him. Dean's face-down on the bed. Cas knows he's not crying, but he's trembling, shoulders shaking, pillow shaking from where his arms are shoved under it. He hesitates by the door for a moment before he toes off his shoes, shrugs off his coat and jacket, and pads over to the bed. When sitting by the bed and stroking a hand down Dean's back gets no response, he lays down next to his human, his righteous man, his Prince, pressing close to Dean's side.

 

They lie like that for a time before Dean shifts, rolls, turns himself face-to-face with Castiel. They're close, but not quite touching anymore, and Cas is suddenly uncertain, doesn't know what to offer, whether to reach out and touch or to leave Dean to rage and grieve on his own.

 

“Where did I go wrong?” Dean finally rasps out, and Cas starts.

 

“Dean, you didn't―”

 

“I messed up or I wasn't good enough to raise him or something or I didn't stop him. I must've missed something. I didn't―” _I didn't see this coming_ goes unspoken as Dean cuts himself off. Cas makes his choice and reaches out, cups the back of Dean's neck, squeezes gently.

 

“There was nothing you could have done. Nothing either of us could have done. This was unavoidable. Sam has been heading toward this for a long time.” He shifts forward, resting his forehead against Dean's. He doesn't even care if it's true, he just has to say something to make Dean hurt less. “You did everything you could. It wasn't your fault.”

 

Dean doesn't respond to that, and Cas knows he's not convinced. But now isn't the time to try to convince Dean, not the time to argue or reason. It's the time to let Dean pull him close, to let himself be held onto and to hold in return.

 

“Try to sleep, Dean. I won't leave you. I promise you, I'll never leave you,” Cas murmurs against Dean's shoulder, where his head's tucked. Dean is still fully dressed, minus his boots, and they're on top of the covers, but their limbs are tangled together and neither wants to move. Dean doesn't really want to move ever again. Wants to lie in this bed with Castiel until he dies, quietly and peacefully and without having to deal with the monster his little brother's become.

 

But he knows he can't. So he holds on tight to his angel and closes his eyes, hoping distantly he doesn't wake up in the morning.

 

 

*****

 

 

It's not the first time they've had this argument. It's been a fairly common occurrence, since the convent, since they realized how far things had already gone with Sam and how far behind Dean was. Castiel had tried to explain what Dean was, what Sam was, what Dean needed to do. But Dean wouldn't listen, couldn't quite believe that any of this was real. He'd felt like he was living in a nightmare since St. Mary's. Nothing quite felt real.

 

“Dean, you must do this.”

 

“Cas―”

 

“ _No._ There is no arguing this. If you don't do this you won't be able to stop the apocalypse. We have no choice.”

 

“Cas, I can't do this.” Castiel is suddenly shoving him up against the wall of the motel room, hands fisted in Dean's coat.

 

“I have not come this far and given this much just to see you fail, Dean. This is something you must do. You do this, or the world die.” Dean slumps against the wall, grips Cas' arms.

 

“Okay. Okay, Cas. I'll do it. Just... not right now, okay? Give me a little time to deal with this. And then I'll do it.” Castiel's grip loosens, defeated. “Hey. I mean it, I'll do it. I just need time, okay baby?”

 

“You don't have much time, Dean,” Cas says quietly. Dean slides his arms down, wraps them around Cas' waist.

 

“I know. I know.”

 

 

*****

 

 

“It's been a while since you've had a drink, hasn't it? What, almost twelve hours now?” she teases as they enter their hotel room, the room they got for free after Sam decided to practise his powers on the owner.

 

“C'mon, Ruby, I want it,” Sam hisses and he shoves the demon against the wall, already tearing her shirt off. She pulls his off and grins at the tree branching over his chest. ( _He'd gone out one night and come back with the tattoos, the trees on his chest and back, and she'd licked the drops of blood from the inflamed skin. “A dark heart dwells where branches meet,” she'd said, and laughed._ )

 

“Yeah, baby, it's yours, go for it.” He kisses her hard, bites at her mouth, both of them grinning when they taste the blood from her split lip. He shoves her down on the bed and pounces on top of her. When she goes to move Sam pins her hands, bites at her collarbone, and she squirms happily under him as he takes both of her wrists in one hand and grabs the knife from his belt with the other.

 

Sam cuts a line up Ruby's chest, between her breasts, and follows the line of blood with his mouth, and she arches under the touch just as she arched under the knife, and she laughs as he cuts again. He pauses and kisses her, lips and tongue covered in her blood, and she moans into it and offers herself for him, so that he can drink his fill.

 

Sam hums as he feels the rush of power he gets from this; even though the power is more his own than from the blood, now, his boon received almost two years ago, the blood still gives him a rush, a high, and he loves it.

 

 

*****

 

 

“Dean, I've already told you. We've wasted enough time as it is,” Cas says firmly, holding his sword out to Dean, hilt-first. Dean feels sick.

 

“Cas. You can't― I can't do this. This can't be right.”

 

“It's right. This is your boon. This is necessary. You promised me this, Dean.” And Cas, for all he's slowly falling, looks every inch the soldier of heaven in this moment. Dean hesitates a moment longer before reaching out and taking the sword, brushing his fingers against Cas' as he does.

 

Dean places the blade on the model nightstand and draws Castiel close, one hand on his neck and the other in the small of his back and kisses his angel, tenderly. ~~~~

His hand slides around to cup Cas' cheek and Dean swallows, hard, before laying Cas down on the bed.

 

Cas bares his throat and Dean cringes because _this has to be intimate, this has to mean more_ and Dean leans down, presses kisses up the column of Cas' throat before taking the blade from the table.

 

Cas lies still as Dean takes a deep breath before pressing the edge of the sword to Castiel's neck and this could kill him, Dean could _kill_ him like this and he wants to run again, until Cas' hand comes up. It rests over Dean's, pressing the blade closer, blue eyes fixed on Dean's.

 

The skin splits under the press of the blade and it's not blood that spills from the wound, it's the shine of grace. Dean isn't quite aware of moving until his mouth is over the split in the skin and he's sucking and lapping at the grace trickling out.

 

There's a rush of heat, of disgust and self-loathing and _how could you become this_ before understanding crashes into his brain and he rears back as images fill his head.

 

*

 

Dean reacts with panic, stumbling away from Cas and slamming the bathroom door shut behind him.

 

He emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later, pale and shaken and avoiding looking at Cas, looking anywhere but at his angel perched on the bed with a healing cut across his collarbone, still angry and red but fading quickly. He'd splashed water on his face. It hadn't helped. He goes straight for the bottle of whiskey and takes a swig, another, before putting it on the nightstand with a shaking hand and sitting on the side of the bed.

 

(They'd gotten a room with a king bed. Neither of them had been able to stomach the thought of looking at the second bed because that bed wasn't Cas' and neither of them wanted to think about why its occupant wasn't with them, where he might be, what he might be doing.)

 

“So,” he croaks, and it's rougher than usual, and so, so tired. “So I'm...” he trails off, and Cas nods. “And you're... you're my Prophet. You have to― you're supposed to name my enemy, right?”

 

Castiel stands, circles the bed, lowers himself to his knees in front on Dean, and rests his forehead on Dean's knees. Whispers, “I would give anything to spare you this,” and Dean tangles his fingers gently in Cas' hair, slumps down over him.

“Cas who― name him,” But it's not an order, it's a plea, it's an unspoken but deafeningly loud _don't let it be him, please, name anyone else in the world and I'll kill them, but please, please_.

 

But he knows.

 

He's known since Cas first gave him those scrawled notes, but Dean is good at lying to himself. He'd just about convinced himself he was wrong, that he's just come to the wrong conclusions, didn't have enough information to get the full picture.

 

He knows there was never any other option. Not really. But it doesn't stop the tattered remnants of his heart from flaying further when Castiel speaks.

 

“Sam. Dean, it's Sam.”

 

*

 

Later that he wakes feeling _wrong_ , feeling like something's shifting under his skin, and gently untangles himself from Cas' limbs ( _angels aren't supposed to sleep, though, are they_ ). He stumbles to his duffle, washes down a mouthful of salt with holy water, tries desperately to ignore the comfortable warmth the holy water gives him ( _that's new, that's never happened before, why is that happening_ ). grabs his silver knife and slices across his forearm.

 

He loses a few seconds. One moment he's watching the blood ( _blueblueblue)_ welling up from the wound and the next he's retching over the toilet, heaving even after there's nothing left to bring up ( _there's nothing left of me, is there_ ).

 

He's still bent double on the bathroom floor when Cas pushes the door open and pads into the bathroom. Dean resists, at first, as strong hands try to pull him to his feet. Cas makes a quiet, distressed noise and Dean goes limp, letting Cas pull him up, rinse his mouth, wipe his face, and lead him out of the bathroom.

 

Dean lets himself be bundled into bed, covers laid over him and Castiel all around him. Dean fists his hands into the shirt he finally convinced Cas to sleep in, his own soft t-shirt, thinks he feels feathers at his back, but he's so numb he isn't sure.

 

He chokes out a sob and presses his face, hard, into Castiel's chest, feels like a monster ( _knows his brother is a monster_ ), and lets the tears come.

 

Cas stokes Dean's hair gently, whispers soothingly into the dark, and prays with all his remaining grace, to a father he's rapidly losing faith in, to spare them this, to spare the man he loves.

 

*

 

The next morning, Dean sits at the foot of the bed with a hand over his face, grasping at whatever parts of him still feel human, trying to not think about the blue now coursing through his veins. Cas perches next to him and presses an old, worn book into his hands.

 

“What's this?” Dean asks gruffly, frowning at the blank cover.

 

“Research. By an... old friend. He recorded everything he could find on Avatars during his life. You're something of a special case, but I believe this could still be helpful,” Cas explains, and Dean nods in response. He flips it open and the first page is blank as well, except for _T. Harvelle_ scrawled in the top corner. “I gave you some of his early notes, once. This is the full book.”

 

Dean scrubs a hand over his face and tries desperately to accept that this is his life. This is what he is, now. This is what he always was.

 

 

*****

 

 

Dean dreams more, these days. He finds himself in motel beds with Cas, drinking in wisps of grace, and later, as he sleeps with limbs tangled up in Cas', he dreams.

 

Sometimes he dreams of Sam. Some nights of Sam as a child, as a gangly teen, as a proud husband. Other nights it's Sam quiet and broken, Sam slipping through Dean's fingers into darkness. He dreams sometimes of looking at Sam and seeing someone else behind his brother's eyes, and of facing his brother in a garden.

 

(Cas had told him that his dreams could change after receiving his boon, but had looked away without answering when Dean asked if the dreams were more than dreams.)

 

Other nights he dreams of strangers who feel so, so familiar.

 

He sees vast blue skies and dry dusty earth, a caravan of mismatched trucks and trailers in a line, driving down a road. He sees crowds of people walking among tents and stands and banners and a ferris wheel, huge and bright above it all. It's like he's seeing it all through someone else's eyes, someone wandering throughout the crowds and the shows, lending a hand where he's needed.

 

He wakes one morning telling someone named Jonesy he'd be right there, and blinks fully awake to find Cas frowning at him from across the room.

 

He tells Cas about the dreams as they drive to their next destination, the next hunt they're taking to kill time until they know what to do next. Castiel tells him he's probably dreaming about a previous Avatar, maybe dreaming moments of his life.

 

*

 

Sam dreams as well. Sometimes he dreams of Daniel, sees his son off in the distance and no matter how long or fast he runs he never gets any closer. He knows that Daniel’s lost to him. Like Jess is. Like his humanity is. But he keeps trying when he dreams, keeps trying to reach his son as though it could change anything.

 

He doesn't dream of Jess anymore. He hasn't once dreamed of her since he first drank from Ruby.

 

The first night he dreams of giving a sermon to a congregation, he wakes confused and strangely unsettled. It makes more sense the next night, when he's kneeling on the floor with an old woman as coins fly from her mouth.

 

He mentions to Ruby that he thinks he's dreaming about some past Avatar. Ruby laughs and tells him to take notes.

 

 

*****

 

 

It's happened enough times now that it barely hurts when Sam finds himself in bed next to Jess. He's had the same dream for months now, ever since they freed Lucifer.

 

“I told you before, we're not having this conversation with you looking like her,” Sam says, sitting up against the headboard. Jess sits up and smiles before her face shifts to the man that Sam knows Lucifer has taken as a temporary vessel.

 

“Alright. Can we talk about why you won't just say yes to me?”

 

“I told you. I'm not interested in being your meatsuit.”

 

“Now Sam. I'm an angel. You wouldn't be anything as crass as a meatsuit. You'd be a vessel.”

 

“Either way. I'm not interested in letting you make me a puppet to use,” Sam says, and Lucifer rolls his eyes and sighs.

 

“Well, you won't say yes, and I can't find you to make you say yes, so what do we do about this, Sam?” Sam makes a considering noise and smirks, tapping fingers on his knee.

 

“Maybe we can work something out,” he says after a moment, and Lucifer frowns. This man is more than his vessel, he realizes. This man is a force of his own. “How about a deal with the devil?”

 

 

*****

 

 

Lucifer taking his vessel is no small matter. The sun is setting on the second of November when Castiel feels the ringing in his grace of an archangel finding its vessel. He gasps and puts a hand to his chest, presses to try to still it. Dean is suddenly in front of him, standing in front of where Cas leans against the Impala. Cas doesn't see him at first, can't see him past the light. He's barely been able to hear the Host lately but they're deafeningly loud in his ears now, crying out and singing as their banished brother finds his vessel.

 

As the cacophony fades back into the muted song Cas has become accustomed to, he slowly becomes aware of Dean murmuring his name over and over. Dean cups his face and Cas meets his eyes slowly, blinking the light from his vision.

 

“Cas. Cas, hey. What just happened?” Dean's voice is as gentle as his hands as they stoke Cas' face and hair, Dean offering whatever comfort he can.

 

“Lucifer has taken his vessel,” Cas manages, trembling like his grace is still trembling. Dean's hands still and retreat, clench at his sides as he draws a deep breath and begins pacing, boots heavy in the dust at the side of the road.

 

“He said yes,” he finally says, and Cas nods silently. “So is he...” Dean trails off at that. He can't quite make himself form the words, _is he still alive, is the devil wearing an empty shell, do I still have to kill my brother?_

 

“I'm not certain. I can't― I can't tell that much yet. I'm sorry.” His grace is only fluttering now, but there's a pain in his head blooming to replace the shaking. He's curling in on himself when Dean turns and notices. Cas is pulled gently back into the Impala, held close against Dean as he wraps himself around Cas and presses a kiss to the crown of his head and adamantly does not think about whatever might be left of his brother.

 

Cas is breathing hot against his neck and relaxing as the pain eases and this is all Dean has left, he thinks, this falling angel and this car that's the only home he's known. He wants a drink but can't reach one―left his beer outside where he'd been drinking it and his flask is already empty. It's possible the drink he's craving isn't alcohol. It's been a while, and he knows he's starting to crave the burn and thrum of Castiel's grace but doesn't want to admit it out loud, doesn't want to acknowledge how much he's changing.

 

 

*****

 

 

After three days of worldwide bizarre weather―freak storms, earthquakes, floods―Sam wakes up in a hotel bed. He's freezing cold and burning up all at once and his head is so _crowded_ and he's groaning before he even realizes he's quite awake. Ruby's there, kneeling next to him on the bed, stroking his face, his hair, asking if he wants a drink. Sam tries to sit up and finds he can't, finds that his body feels half-numb, distant, like it's his but it's very far away. Something shifts in his head and he can feel himself again. He feels stretched, pulled tight, too little skin pulled over too much power, too much force of will.

 

 _This is going to take some getting used to_ , he hears in his head and jerks. Ruby's speaking again, but the worried tone in her voice is all but lost in the buzzing sounds in his head.

_Is this how this is going to work? We switch off who gets to drive?_ Sam thinks in response and feels an agreeing pulse in his mind.

****

“Sam!” Ruby's voice finally cuts through the haze as she grabs his shoulders. He blinks up at her a few times until his vision focuses. She looks honestly scared. Sam didn't quite expect that.

****

“M'fine,” he slurs out, pushing himself up against the headboard. “I'm fine.”

****

“You've been out for three days, Sam. That really doesn't seem fine to me,” she snaps, letting annoyance hide her concern. Sam frowns.

****

“Really? I didn't... I didn't realize.” Something shifts again. His body feels very far away as he leans forward and cups Ruby's face in his hands, kisses her on the forehead.

 

“Hello, child,” Sam's mouth says and it's such a strange feeling, the devil speaking through him. “Thank you for all you did to get me here.” Lucifer sits back, and Ruby doesn't move, gaping at him in shock.

 

“Oh,” she finally manages, looking uncertain, like she isn't sure what she should be doing in Lucifer's presence. Sam pushes back to the front of his mind and laughs.

 

“Yeah. Oh.” He pulls her forward, into his lap, and kisses her. Lucifer thrums at that, a reaction that Sam can't interpret yet. He's sure he'll learn, in time.

 

*

 

The first two months are rough. The transition as they shift is slow, disconcerting, and there's a second where the body slumps, limp without a driver, before they can regain control. It necessitates certain amounts of planning―if they need to switch, they have to make sure they can sit to do so. Neither is willing to show any weakness, so they avoid shifting in the presence of anyone other than Ruby.

 

Sam kills demons while Lucifer wraps around him, around his powers, and guides him. It's almost like showing someone how to play pool by stretching around them, showing them how to move their arms, like he had done once with Ruby. Lucifer shows him precision and strength that Sam had never managed on his own, and he smiles as he pulls a demon out through the bloody, raw flesh where the meatsuit's fingernails had been.

 

Lucifer forms plans, confers with high-ranking demons, and Sam whispers to him. Sam is strategic in a cruel, brutal way that makes Lucifer smile to himself. Later, when the meetings are over, Lucifer sprawls on a bed and whispers back, tells Sam that he couldn't have had a better vessel, tells him how perfect he is as the body's hands roam over it. They've learned how to split control over the body they share, slipping and sliding themselves into different body parts. Not practical, perhaps, but enjoyable. Ruby agrees, the night she walks in on them. Sam beckons her to the bed with one hand while Lucifer smiles at her, predatory and interested.

 

*

 

Another two months and they're sliding in and out gracefully. Sam lifts his foot to take a step and Lucifer puts it down. Lucifer reaches for a knife and it's Sam who curls fingers around it. Their edges are bleeding together and Ruby isn't always quite certain which one of them she's talking to anymore. Somehow, they feel more whole than they can recall feeling before. It's strangely comfortable, feels strangely right, and neither of them have much concern about what this might make them.

 

 

*****

 

 

Dean tells Cas about Jess one day. He's a bit drunk. That's not uncommon, these days.

 

“She was great, man. I mean, gorgeous, funny, sweet. She was perfect for Sammy. They were so happy, and now―” he pauses, and laughs bitterly. “Now she's crazier'n a shithouse rat, Cas. I just― what happened?”

 

“It was Sam,” Cas says softly, and even now, even after everything, Dean instinctively bristles in defence of his brother. “Jess gave birth to the first-born son of an Avatar. It was... unavoidable.” Dean's quiet for a moment, considering.

 

“So I could do the same thing, someday? Drive some poor chick crazy? Fuck, I could have done it already.”

 

Cas doesn't speak. His only response is to take Dean's hand in his own, tangle their fingers together, offer the only comfort he can. There's so little to be found for them, these days.

 

They're quiet for a while, sitting on the hood of the Impala, watching the stars. Cas nurses his beer, while Dean drinks in gulps.

 

“I just wanted him to be happy,” Dean says suddenly, and Cas turns his head to look at him. It's dark, but Cas has enough grace left in him to see Dean clearly, see the sorrow on his face as he keeps his eyes on the stars. “Bobby found them this great house, just outside of Palo Alto, belonged to an old hunter friend. Me'n him went out and fixed it up, put up all the wards we knew. Wanted to make it safe for― for the three of them, you know? We moved them in, and Jess loved it, and Sammy looked so happy. I was the best man at their wedding, I mean fuck, everything was so good. I was gonna slow down with the hunting, and be an uncle, and maybe dad would stop being an obsessive bastard and be a grandfather.” He pauses as a sound tears out of his throat, a sob and a scream and a laugh all at once.

“And now Sammy’s off doing hell only knows what and neither of us are human and his kid's off somewhere but I don't even know if he's alive and fuck, Cas, how did things get this bad?” And that's a sob, definitely a sob, dry and pained, and he's rubbing a hand over his face when Cas speaks.

 

“Daniel is safe. Jess has taken him out of the country, and she's raising him well enough. They could be happier, but they're safe. And being something other than human doesn't have to be a bad thing.” Dean untangles his hand from Castiel's so he can tangle it in his angel's hair, instead, and pulls him in for a kiss.

 

“There are still good things in this world, Dean,” Cas murmurs against Dean's mouth. “There are still things worth saving. And there are things worth living for.”

 

 

*****

 

 

Cas knows he can't say it. He can never say it. He can't do that to Dean, and―selfishly―he won't risk Dean's reaction, won't risk Dean cutting him out for voicing the thought. But Cas knows that he'd lied to Dean after the convent; Dean could have done something. He could have held Sam close, kept treating his brother like a human and maybe, just maybe, Sam would have kept his humanity. But Dean didn't, he pushed Sam away because he couldn't deal with his little brother being anything but human, and he had inadvertently pushed him right into Ruby's arms.

 

He wonders sometimes if Dean knows it, deep down. If his claims that he couldn't have done anything are him trying to convince himself it's true when he knows it isn't. Because there's a chance that he could have helped, but he didn't realize it until it was too late. Didn’t realize how much he'd pushed his brother away until it was far, far too late and Lilith’s blood was spreading across the floor of the convent and Sam was grinning down at Ruby.

 

He'll never say it out loud, but curled up under the covers with Dean all around him, Cas can't help but think that Dean's wrong when he says this couldn't have been helped. Sam Winchester is many, many things. But he's not weak. And Castiel thinks that, given the support of his brother, things could have turned out very differently.

 

 

*****

 

 

He's driving down a quiet road with his brother sitting next to him.

 

Something in him knows there's something amiss, something off, something wrong about the colour of the sky.

 

But it's late and they're driving until either they hit a town with a motel or they get tired and pull over to sleep in the car. They're driving to a hunt, and it's like things always used to be. Singing along obnoxiously loud to the rock tapes and teasing each other with _bitch_ and _jerk_ and it's so, so good. Maybe there could be a third, maybe there's an empty space in the backseat that could be full of wings, but Dean knows he's around and safe and the time to spend with his brother is welcome.

 

It feels like it's been so long since they've had time like this.

 

They're talking about the hunt and about who's the better shot and how _yeah, well, I'll prove I'm better when I shoot the damn thing, Sammy_ and Dean's happy in a way he feels like he hasn't been in years, but he can't quite remember what's been so desperately wrong.

 

But he's laughing and his brother's laughing and it doesn't seem so important, dwelling on problems.

 

Until he finally takes his eyes off the road and glances over, expecting to see his gigantic floppy-haired happy brother sitting next to him but instead it's black eyes and blue blood and everything comes crashing back and―

 

He isn't sure, actually. If it's his brother. It could just as easily be the devil. He hasn't been able to tell them apart lately.

 

The thing in the passenger seat says _Hello, Dean_ through blood-covered teeth and grins at him.

 

Suddenly Dean's jerking awake with a scream tearing out of his throat and that's not enough so he keeps screaming and tearing at his hair and then there are gentle hands grabbing at his wrists and pulling him close and Dean pounds his fists against the solid chest in front of him before grabbing fistfuls of tan trench coat and pressing his face against his angel's neck.

 

The screams turn to ragged sobs and Castiel gathers Dean gently into his arms and hold him close, strokes his back, presses kissed to his hair.

 

Whispers to him _I'm here, I've got you, I'll never leave you, Dean Winchester_ because he can't say _it's all right._

 

Because it isn't. It never will be again.

 

He holds his creature of light, his righteous man, for what feels like hours, until the sobs have quieted to hitching breaths and shaking, and Castiel gently pushes him down to the mattress and curls around him, telling him quietly to _go back to sleep, beloved, I'm here, I'll always be here for you, always for you._

 

He knows it's not enough, but he prays it can help.

 

 

*****

 

 

For all that it's beginning to become routine, beginning to become an addiction, Dean hasn't quite worked out how to ask for what he needs. He can't find the words to say it, to say _you're something good and holy and so much more than I've ever deserved, could ever deserve, can I suck the light from your veins?_ It's why Cas always seems to be the one to initiate, the one to lie on the bed with his tie gone and his collar opened, baring the line of his throat to Dean's hungry gaze. Dean swallows hard, glances to the bedside table where the knife lies, like always, and sighs.

 

He kisses Cas first, always kisses him first, lowers himself down so he's pressed against the angel and kisses him, slow and tender. For a moment he pretends that they're like any other couple, getting into bed after a long day, but it feels disrespectful, somehow. Cas is impatient under him and Dean can feel it in the coiled tension of his arms. Dean slides a hand under Cas' shirt before sitting up, straddling the other man, and pulling off his own shirt before starting on the buttons of the shirt Cas still likes to wear, even after so much time.

 

The blade's heavy and cold in Dean's hand when he finally reaches over and picks it up. Castiel suppresses a shiver when the metal presses against the column of his neck.

 

“Why do you let me do this to you?” Castiel starts at the sound of Dean's voice, rough and tired, from above him. Cas doesn't scar, certainly not from this, but Dean is looking at his neck like he can see every mark, every time he's cut into the angel's flesh. Dean is normally silent during these times, and Cas has come to expect hesitant bloodletting followed by quiet lovemaking when they do this. It takes him a moment to decide how to respond.

 

“Because I have faith in you, Dean. And I trust you,” he says, bringing a hand up to Dean's face. Dean presses his cheek into the touch, eyes closed. He doesn't say _because this is necessary, because you must do this to save the world, because they're growing stronger all the time and you need to as well_. It's never what Dean wants to hear, especially when he's already guilty and trembling and feeling utterly inhuman. Dean nods, slowly, once, and opens his eyes. The knife slides across Castiel's throat, sharp enough that he barely feels it until the light begins to seep out. And then he feels the heat of Dean's lips, the suction and the pull of his grace bleeding into his Prince's mouth. Dean's laving the last of the blood from his skin and kissing it as the wound closes.

 

There's a shake to his shoulders, to the movement of his hands, and Castiel pulls him up to kiss him, gasping into Dean's mouth as a hand slides into his pants and strokes. He's sensitive, like he always is after Dean drinks from him, and he fumbles with buttons and zippers in his need for more, to feel more of Dean's bare skin against his own.

 

Dean gasps Castiel's name almost reverently when they get the layers out of the way and press against each other. Cas' hips stutter against Dean's and he's murmuring nonsense, _It's alright Dean, I've got you, I'm here, I'll always be here_. It's been a long day and they're too tired for anything beyond the gentle friction and pressure as Dean grips them both in one hand. It's not long before Cas spills, and Dean follows soon after. Cas takes a moment to wipe a tissue over Dean's hand and their stomachs before curling up around Dean.

 

Cas knows he won't ask, he'll never ask, but Dean likes to be held when Castiel's grace is still hot in his veins. There's so little he can do for Dean these days, so little he can do to help his Prince. He'll gladly give Dean anything within his power to give.

 

 

*****

 

 

Castiel remembers his first meeting with Sam. How Sam had been so taken aback, so shocked to meet an angel, how his faded faith came rushing back and he tripped over his words in greeting. Even then, with no idea of how bad it would get, Castiel had felt the darkness in the boy and tried to be kind, tried to be good to him, tried to bring him closer to light. But his wings itched to fly, to flee from this creature, and it distracted him, and Uriel's disgust for humans hardly helped give Sam a good first impression.

 

He had tried, he really did—he wanted to befriend Sam, not only because hed quickly been coming to care for Dean more than he should. He saw how conflicted Sam was, how much he was fighting with himself and his nature and how close he was to giving in to it. Castiel understood that more and more all the time, what it feels like to be at war with what you are, to see what you're meant to be and who you are and not be sure which is who you want to be. Castiel understood that. Even when he was drenched in doubt and had no idea which choice is right, he wanted desperately to help Sam choose the path that would lead him away from his nature.

 

But it was so hard to be civil, to be soft, when everything he is squirmed in Sam's presence, when he felt like shaking out of his vessel when Sam touched him. And he didn't want to, but he couldn't help but be cold to Sam because _away, he needs to get away, I have to get away, no don't touch_.

 

It's years later before Cas understands.

 

It takes three years and a handful of months and Sam saying yes to the devil before he realizes why he always wanted to run from Sam Winchester He's sitting alone in a motel room, reading to pass the time until Dean returns when suddenly Sam's standing in front of him. Castiel’s wrists are bound with cuffs carved with Enochian sigils and he might have enough grace remaining to escape, but it's sealed off the second those cuffs close around his wrists.

 

They're not in the hotel room anymore. Cas looks around but doesn't recognize it—an abandoned warehouse, maybe? Sam smiles at him and says, “Hey, Cas” and then something shifts in his face and he says, “Hello brother,” and Castiel might start screaming then, or he might wait until the hooks are being stabbed through his wings, but he isn't sure anymore.

 

The hooks are heavy, attached to heavier chains, and one hangs from the ceiling and pulls his wing cruelly up and away from his body, while the other is allowed to slump to the floor. Sam (if it is Sam) pulls experimentally on one of the hooks and black creeps in around the edges of his vision. Slowly falling had hurt, breaking his foot had hurt, but nothing had hurt like this.

 

“What do you want from me?” he manages to gasp out.

 

“Castiel,” the man in front of him chuckles, and Castiel shudders when he realizes he isn't sure who's speaking, “All we want is to spend a little quality time with you.” He hears a laugh from across the room and whips his head around, wincing as the motion jars his wings and sends new pain through them. It's Ruby, sitting on a chair in the corner, spinning a knife around in one hand.

 

“Hey there, Feathers. How's it going?” she says cheerfully, grinning at him. Cas glares before looking back to the man standing in the pristine white suit. He's holding an angel sword now. That might mean that it's Lucifer standing in front of him. Or it might be a sword they got from some other angel, one of his murdered brothers. Both possibilities make Cas' chest ache.

 

“Sam, please,” he starts, but realizes he doesn't know where to go from there. Y _ou don't want to do this_? But clearly he does. _I was your friend, once_? But that's not quite true, Castiel never would have called them friends, not with how his borrowed skin crawled in Sam's presence. Sam chuckles (and Cas is fairly sure it is Sam, can feel the faint shift between his brother's bright grace and Sam's dark soul when they switch places, now) and crouches down in front of him.

 

“You can beg if you want, angel. I can promise you I'll enjoy it.” He reaches out a hand and strokes along Cas' cheek and Cas recoils, the pain from his wings numbed by the _wrongness_ of that touch, the turn of his stomach, the pain in his chest.

 

“I once thought you and your brother would save the world.” The words burst out of him, and he realizes suddenly that they're true, that for all that he couldn't be comfortable around Sam, Cas never believed he would become this. Never believed that the broken boy he met in that hotel room would become this dark, nearly indistinguishable from the devil. Sam smirks at him.

 

“Well. Guess you were wrong about that, huh?” he says, standing back up. This time Castiel watches them switch places, watches Sam slide back and Lucifer slide to the front. It's an easy transition―the body's steps never once falter as he walks toward Ruby―and Castiel feels sick all over again. That isn't how vessels are supposed to work; this shouldn't be so easy for them.

 

Lucifer takes the knife from Ruby with a quiet “Thank you, my dear,” and walks back to where Cas is chained and speared on the floor. “Now, little brother,” the morning star begins. “Where should we start?” the Creature of Darkness finishes.

 

*

 

Through the haze of pain, Castiel starts thinking about how he and Sam have something in common now; they're both fallen, one way or another. But they're so different. Castiel fell for the world. Sam fell to destroy it. Cas fell for love and Sam fell because of the loss of it. As the knife cuts into the base of his wing, he thinks about how he should have done more to befriend Sam when it might have made a difference.

 

He should have prevented this.

 

He should have tried harder, should have known what Sam was going to become.

 

Maybe he should have realized that he couldn't have prevented this and, instead, killed Sam the moment he met him.

 

He wonders if he's going to make it out of this building alive.

 

If the _I'll be back in, like, twenty minutes, Cas, don't worry about it_ was the last he'll ever see of Dean.

 

Wonders what Dean will do if he finds Cas, bloody and broken on this floor.

 

If he doesn't find Cas at all.

 

He decides to think about Dean, about his green eyes and his freckles and that smile that Cas sees so rarely these days. Dean's all that's on his mind as the pain overwhelms him and he finally slips into darkness.

 

*

 

Cas has been missing for a week.

 

It's all Dean can think about. Dean had gone out for a quick supply run, and when he got back, Cas was gone. At first Dean tried to tell himself that his angel had just gone out for a quick errand, he just forgot his gun and his jacket and his boots. But after Dean waited and paced and sat down and stood up and started pacing again and it had been an hour, there was no convincing himself that it was nothing.

 

He tries every location spell he knows and gets nothing (and that's a lot of spells; he learned as many as he could during that year and a half where his brother kept vanishing off to god knows where). Nothing from the spells and nothing from Cas' phone and Dean is starting to panic a little.

 

He knocks on the doors of the rooms next to him, asks if they saw anyone leave his room, asks the motel manager if he saw anything, asks the cleaning lady (notices her reach for the gun hidden in the pile of towels—people still had to work, but it was getting increasingly dangerous, these days). But no one's seen a thing, no one knows where Cas might have vanished to.

 

Dean stays in the motel room that night, hopes it's just a misunderstanding and Cas will wander back in during the night, but when Dean wakes up at dawn and there's still no angel, he knows that something's terribly wrong and drives away.

 

He questions every creature he can find, asks everyone he encounters if they've seen Cas. He's frantic and all he can think is that hecan't do this alone, he needs Cas because there's no way he has the strength to keep going without Cas, if Cas is dead somewhere god help him, Dean's driving the Impala off a fucking bridge because there's no way he's going to be able to kill his brother without his angel by his side.

 

But it's been a week and there's been nothing, no sign, and Dean doesn't know what to do. He pulls the Impala over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. It's the middle of the night and he hasn't slept in two days and he needs at least a nap before he can keep looking, even if the last thing he wants to do is waste time sleeping.

 

*

 

He wakes up a few hours later to the sun shining in through the windows of the Impala. There's a slip of paper on the seat next to him and Dean stares at it for a moment in confusion before grabbing it.

 

It's an address. He turns the key in the ignition and starts driving and tries desperately not to think about the note under it.

 

_Sorry for borrowing your toy without asking. I had fun with it, though._

 

*

 

Eight hours of driving later and Dean's pulling up in front of an old warehouse at the outskirts of a city. He's armed to the teeth, doesn't know what he should expect as he silently slips into the building through an open door. A trap, maybe. Demons lying in wait for him. Cas' dead body.

 

He doesn't expect to see Cas pinned to a wall.

 

Once his heart starts beating again and he looks closer, he realizes that Cas isn't just pinned. He's _crucified_ , huge nails through his hands and feet (and _oh god, through his wings_ ), holding them out straight along the wall. Dean's frozen in place, thinking inanely that he looks like a butterfly pinned to a board before running over.

 

“Cas? Oh god, Cas? Baby?” he whispers, reaching up slightly to cup Cas' face in one hand, feeling for a pulse with the other. “Don't be dead, Cas, please don't be dead.” He finds a pulse, weak and thready but there, as Cas' eyes flutter open. He smiles at Dean, weakly, and tries to say something, but his voice comes out as a croak.

 

“Don't try to talk, okay? I'm going to get you down, Cas, it'll be okay,” Dean says desperately, glancing around the room for something to stand on. There's a chair in one corner and he runs over, grabs it, runs back, and uses it to get himself on eye level with the nails through Cas' wings. It's a painstaking process, trying to pull out the nails using only his fingers and a knife while trying to hold Cas up at the same time to keep weight off the nails. Cas goes limp again after a little while, blacks out from the pain, and that doesn't exactly help.

 

Dean doesn't know how long it's been, but it feels like hours, days, before he's cradling Cas in his arms, carrying him out to the Impala. But he can't take him to a hospital, not with his wings hanging limply from his back, and Dean's not quite sure what to do. He settles for getting him somewhere where Dean Cas try to fix him up and go from there.

 

Dean pulls into the first motel he can find, books a room and gets Cas inside, stretched out on the bed. Most of the wounds don't look that serious, really—painful, yes, but not fatal—but he's clearly lost a lot of blood. Dean starts by cleaning and bandaging the wounds in his hands and feet. He's cleaning some of the blood from Cas' wings to assess the damage when the angel stirs, and Dean is right there with a glass of water, letting Cas have small sips and stroking his hair.

 

“Hey, sweetheart, thought I'd lost you,” he whispers, leaning down to kiss Cas' forehead. Blue eyes meet his and the angel murmurs his name. “I don't― can you heal from this on your own, or do we need to get you to a hospital?” he asks seriously, and Cas considers it.

 

“I'll be fine. Eventually. I have enough grace left to recover from this, slowly,” he rasps out, and Dean goes for the glass of water again.

 

“Okay, Cas, I'm going to get these cleaned up and bandaged. You get some rest.” Cas nods at that and his eyes close. He moans a little while Dean cleans the wounds but doesn't wake up. When he's done, Dean gets off the bed, puts away his medical supplies, and drains his flask to calm his shaking hands. He lies himself next to Cas, stretched out along his side, and pulls Cas close as best he can without hurting him. Cas makes a small, quiet sound and presses himself closer, tucks his head into Dean's neck, and Dean presses a kiss to Cas' hair.

 

“I love you, Cas, please, you have to be okay,” he whispers, and drifts off to sleep as well.

 

*

 

Dean catches wind of a vampire nest a state over. Huge, from what he hears. Cas frowns up at him when he mentions it. The angel's lying on the bed, still healing, still can't walk on his wounded feet, can barely use his hands through the pain in the palms. Dean's taking care of him, but with Cas' grace in the state it's in, healing is slow. Almost human.

 

But they have to move on soon anyway—it's not safe, staying in one motel for long—and Dean tells Cas they'll make a stop at the nest, see what they can do. Cas hates not being able to make it to the car on his own, doesn't like having to be carried, but it's still necessary.

 

Cas folded his wings away again, the morning he woke in Dean's arms after his rescue. But Dean knows, can tells by how Cas keeps shifting and biting his lip that he may not be able to see the feathery appendages but that doesn't mean they're any better than Cas' hands and feet.

 

They're driving through the woods when Dean feels the vamps. It's faint, an awareness of living creatures that started after getting his boon. There're a lot of them, enough that Dean guesses they have multiple cabins out in the woods that they've set up camp in. Dean pulls the car over, clenches his fists on the wheel for a moment before turning to Cas.

 

Cas flinches when Dean reaches out a takes Cas' hand in his own, but doesn't pull back, just watches Dean with a curious look. Dean takes a deep breath and closes his eyes and ignores Cas' quiet “Dean, what―” and instead focuses on the vampires he feels out in the woods and _pulls_ , focuses on Cas' hand, thinks about the muscles and tendons and skin and ligaments knitting themselves back together. He exhales and smiles at Cas, unwraps the bandage around the hand and presses a kiss to the skin of his palm, whole and unbroken.

 

Cas is staring at him in shock now, but Dean ignores that in favour of reaching over and taking Cas' other hand. He repeats the process for the other hand, for Cas' feet, feels a vamp drop dead after every healing. He coaxes Cas into unfolding his wings, heals each of the holes in them, fixing his angel and killing monsters until Cas is better.

 

“Good as new, right?” he says with a smile, leaning forward to press a kiss to Castiel's mouth. Dean hates healing, hates using his powers, hates the reminder that he's not really human anymore, and the reminder that neither is his brother, wherever he is. But sometimes, times like these, he can use them for something so good and it's a nice change, being able to actually make something better in this shithole the world's turning to.

 

“We should probably get going in case those vamps come looking for whatever killed their buddies, huh?” he says, starting up the car again and Cas is still staring at him in surprise.

 

“Thank you,” he finally says, and Dean knows what he means, _thank you for doing this for me, despite how you feel about it, thank you for showing me I matter to you,_ but just grins at him and for a moment, he feels a little bit less broken.

 

 

*****

 

 

It's early in the fall of 2013 when the stories start, of people flying into murderous rages, trying to kill anyone near them with guns, knives, teeth, whatever weapon they can find. They're isolated cases and from all over the country and Dean and Castiel don't know what to make of it, at first—if it's a new urban legend in the making, or if they need to be looking into it. Things have been getting worse all the time anyway, since Lucifer found his vessel. Demons and monsters are getting bolder, and people seem to be getting darker, quicker to anger and violence.

 

A few weeks before Christmas, a story makes the news. A man had walked into a hospital, seeking help after being attacked by a child in an alley. Security tapes showed him, a few hours later, tearing his way through hospital staff and patients alike with a fire axe. It's only then that Dean remembers River Grove, remembers seeing _Croatoan_ carved into a telephone pole.

 

By spring, the government's taking containment measures, but they'd been slow to start, and the virus had taken hold first. It hadn't helped that there had been 'vaccines' on the market, claiming to be effective against the new virus, but had just helped it spread further. Small towns had been emptying. People moved to cities, where they hoped the containment would be strong enough to keep them safe. Outbreaks took small towns much faster, after all.

 

It didn't even occur to Dean to try and heal the infected until he and Cas arrived at Bobby's to find the man shaken and covered in blood, not entirely his own.

 

Bobby's yelling, telling Dean that if he knows what's good for him he'll just shoot him now, that he'd do it himself if the damn Croats hadn't managed to break one of his wrists and three fingers of the other hand. Dean's yelling back just as loud, that he'd lost enough family and damned if he's going to lose any more.

 

Then Cas is yelling his name and Dean jumps because Cas doesn't yell, and when he does it means he has something very important to say. His voice is calm when he points out that Dean hasn't used his power to cure illness before, but he can't think of a reason why it wouldn't work.

 

They convince Bobby to get in the car, to at least give it a try, and drive out until Dean feels enough Croats in the distance to pull energy from. Cas is driving, Dean in the backseat with Bobby, and once the Impala pulls to a stop by the side of the road Dean takes a deep breath and lays his hands on Bobby's shoulders.

 

When they get back to Bobby's house he gets out of the car and immediately locks himself in his panic room. For all that the bones in his fingers and wrist knitted back together and the cuts in his skin sealed, it's too early to say if the virus is still in his system.

 

It's tense, upstairs. Dean's made it most of the way through a bottle of whiskey he found in a cupboard before Castiel announces that it's been long enough, that if Bobby was going to turn he would have by now.

 

Bobby's sitting on the cot in the middle of the room, flipping through a magazine like nothing ever happened. There's a quick hug and a gruff _thanks, son_ and it's all that either of them want to have said, really, before Dean's complaining about how Bobby doesn't have any food in his fridge and Bobby's calling him an idjit. Cas smiles, glad that at least one loss could be avoided.

 

 

*****

 

 

It's Ruby, in the end, who tells them how to find Sam and Lucifer. She walks right up to Bobby's front door, bold as brass, and says that she has a message. Dean leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, Castiel standing just behind him.

 

“Why the hell are you telling us any of this?” Dean asks when she finishes giving them directions to the Jackson County Sanitarium. She scoffs.

 

“Isn't it obvious? You guys have to have this fight eventually. Now seems like as good a time as any. We know Michael's getting pissy about the wait, too.” Which is true, Dean thinks. The archangel's been showing up in Dean's dreams more and more often, demanding that he say yes.

 

“Look, get back to your boyfriend, hell-bitch. We'll show if we show,” Dean grumbles, slamming the door in her face.

 

He's talking with strategy with Bobby twenty minutes later and turns to ask Cas a question before he realizes that he hasn't seen the (now pretty much ex) angel since Ruby left.

 

*

 

Castiel catches up to Ruby when she's just out of sight of Singer Salvage Yard. She's leaning against her car, slipping a phone into a pocket and Castiel brushes a hand over his hip to feel the reassuring weight of the gun there.

 

“Our Creature of Darkness, I assume?” he asks, almost casually, walking up to her and nodding at the phone.

 

“They wanted me to call as soon as the message was delivered. Keep them updated. You know how it is,” she says with a smirk. “Did you follow me out here just to chat, angel?” He frowns at that, at the dig it is, but decides not to give her the satisfaction of rising to it.

 

“I thought it was time we met. Prophet to Prophet.” Ruby laughs at that.

 

“Every prophet in their house, right?” she says, and Cas nods silently. “Do you really think Dean's going to pull this off?” she asks, and Castiel cocks his head at how honestly curious it sounds. “I mean, kill the devil, kill his brother, all that. Do you think he really has it in him?”

 

“I have faith in him,” Castiel says, quiet and solid. Dean, his faith in Dean, is all he really has left. He has to believe that it will be enough.

 

“I guess we'll find out soon.” And then she's moving, grabbing at something from her jacket, and Castiel sees a flash of silver, but he's faster. Before the angel blade finds its way into his chest―and he takes a moment to wonder where she got that―he has the barrel of the Colt pressed to hers, blade knocked out of her hand, and she freezes.

 

“I have faith. I also know the value of removing key pieces from the board. You'll see them again, I suspect,” Castiel says, and pulls the trigger.

 

 

*****

 

 

They've been fighting through Croats and Cas had stayed by his side as they fell to the ground under Dean's hands, the madness leaving their eyes as they blinked in the sunlight, people again. Dean can feel Michael's grace beating in his chest and he's felt every bit of energy he's pulled from Sam to heal these people. He's felt it, every time he pulls the virus out of someone, felt Sam shudder and gasp.

 

The others are somewhere behind them, making sure there aren't any other Croats or demons lying in wait. Dean can feel Sam and Michael can feel Lucifer, and they're not far away, now. Dean looks over at Cas, sees his angel wearing boots and jeans and holding a submachine gun and hates himself, hates the world, for bringing an angel to this level, where he's all but human.

 

But Cas turns, sees Dean looking, and grins at him, bright and broken. Dean's smile is cracked when he tries to return it, reaches out and grabs Cas' hand and pulls him close.

 

“I love you, Cas,” Dean says, holding Cas to his chest and resting his chin on his shoulder. “Love you so much. Wouldn't have made it without you.”

 

“And I love you, Dean.” He sounds bemused, and Dean know that Cas is wondering why they aren't just getting on with it and continuing on to Sam and Lucifer. Dean pulls back and smiles, stroking his hand down Cas' cheek.

 

“See you on the other side, okay babe?” he says before leaning in to kiss Cas, and then he's reaching out to where he can feel Sam and pulling. Cas gasps and tries to pull away, and Dean can only imagine what this feels like for him but he holds on. And Cas is twisting in his arms, his eyes are starting to glow, and his skin is burning hot where it touches Dean.

 

There's a flash of light and Dean's pretty sure he sees wings and Cas is boneless in his arms. Dean lays him down gently, glad for the soft grass. He rests a hand on his angel's chest for a moment, feels the slow breathing, and bends down to kiss his forehead before standing.

 

Michael's getting impatient. They walk off in the direction of their brothers.

 

*

 

He's not sure what to expect when he turns the corner into the garden, but it's not Sam standing there waiting for them in a white suit, studying a rose. It's been months since Dean had seen his brother and his chest aches because Michael's grace running through his veins lets him see more than just his brother's body. Dean can see Sam and Lucifer, the soul and the grace barely even distinct anymore, so twined and twisted around and through each other.

 

This isn't his brother. He hadn't quite understood that, before―knew that Sam had changed, that Sam clearly didn't care about Dean or anyone and Dean needed to kill him. But he hadn't understood before with such clarity; Sam is gone. This twisted thing in front of him isn't his brother.

 

Michael's thrumming in his chest but Dean's calm, so calm, because it's almost over.

 

( _“Look, if we're gonna do this, I got one condition,” Dean says firmly, staring into the blinding white light all around him. “If I'm gonna let you co-pilot my meatsuit, you do not leave me alive after, got it? We kill Sammy and then you kill me. I get to heaven the second we do this thing. Got it?” The light buzzes and pulses in agreement. “Okay then. Yes.” And the light's rushing into him and he knows it's almost over, now. It'll be over soon._

_Dean had left a letter for Bobby in the front seat of the Impala, apologizing for what he's about to do, what he's already planned to do. His surrogate father's somewhere behind him, fighting Croats and demons, and Dean's sorry that there's a good chance he's going to make it to the garden and find Dean’s and Sam's bodies. It's not fair to Bobby, he knows, to make him bury his sons after he'd already had to bury his wife and so many of his friends. Part of him almost wishes Bobby doesn't make it, that maybe he can find some peace today as well. But if he makes it through, Dean hopes he'll understand, at least, when he reads the letter._ )

 

When Sam turns to face Dean there's so little of his brother left in that face that Dean doesn't even recognize him for a moment. It almost makes this easier to face, actually. He'd been thinking of getting to this point and seeing his brother, but it barely is, really. This creature is barely recognizable as the brother Dean raised, the young man who was going to start a family with his wife.

 

Dean can feel Michael thinking the same thing. Their brothers have become a creature unrecognizable as either. It's a new sense of resolve for both of them. Killing their brothers will be much easier if it's not really their brothers that they're killing anymore.

 

“So, just for the record, what am I supposed to call you?” He's surprised to find that the bravado's not entirely faked. Michael's presence is like steel in his chest, reaching through his arms, and it's steadying.

 

“Still with the jokes, huh Dean?” they say, and the words are Sam's but that's where the familiarity ends. “Where's your little angel, anyway? We had so much fun with him last time.” Dean bristles.

 

“He's safe. You're not getting your hands on him again, I swear.” Michael's sword is in Dean's hand, the weight of it comforting. “Do we need to keep going with the banter, or can we just do this thing?”

 

“No, you're right. It's about time we finish this, I think,” they say with a smirk.

 

Dean can feel the world, through Michael's grace. He's aware of everything. He's not sure that half the world will burn because of this fight, but he can tell that it won't be good. There are storms brewing, fault lines shifting, sparks catching in old forests. _People are going to die. A lot of people,_ he thinks, and he's not sure if it's his resignation or Michael's apathy that makes the thought hurt so much less than he thinks it should.

 

“Alright then. Let's do this.”

 

Dean lets Michael take over, more or less, after that. Michael handles the physical aspect, keeping their body moving, while Dean reaches out his mind. With this much grace mingling with his blood, he manages to find Croats and drain the virus from them without touching them. It's a dizzying rush, and he can tell it would never be possible without having Michael twining his grace around Dean's veins. He can feel the silver-blue flowing through him and looks through his own eyes, for a moment, to see their opponent flinch with every healing.

 

It's all a blur of movement and power, and Dean has no idea how long it's been, but suddenly he's pulled back into his body to find them standing over their brothers' body. One foot rests on his chest but it's a warning, not a restraint, and Michael's sword rests against their throat. The archangel is tired and Dean can feel his revulsion and his regret.

 

“I wish there was some way I could've stopped this,” Dean says quietly. He didn't expect Sam's laugh, grinning darkly through the blue coating his teeth.

 

“Are you still telling yourself that? Really? Still telling yourself you didn't treat me different from the first time you saw my blood?” He spits out a mouthful on blue onto the grass and Dean feels his stomach twist. “You drove me to Ruby, Dean. Of course you could've stopped this. You could've kept treating me like your brother. Like I wasn't a _thing_. Both of you. You could have kept us from winding up here.” Dean's stock-still, gutted, can feel Michael's horror mirroring his own at the blame pouring from this chimera of their brothers.

 

Moments flash, unbidden, into Dean's mind. Every time he watched Sam too closely, held onto the rules too tightly. How controlling he had been. How clearly it had hurt and frustrated Sam. How he wouldn't trust Sam with the simplest things. How every single time, Sam had gone to Ruby and ranted about his brother.

 

How Dean had tried to keep Sam human and had pushed him into the arms of a demon instead.

 

“You chose this,” Dean hears his voice saying, but it's Michael speaking through his mouth. “You made the choice that led us here. It was you.” And the sword in their hand is moving, plunging deep into Sam's chest, and Dean's still numb, still wondering how much of this is his fault as he watches Lucifer's grace explode, the brilliant white of the Morning Star still twined with Sam's dark soul. The wings burned into the ground are numerous, twisted things, and Dean feels tears (both of their tears) sliding down his face before everything goes dark.

 

 

*****

 

 

Castiel wakes to a bright blue sky and the feeling of two Princes fighting.

 

It's an event, a Creature of Light and a Creature of Darkness confronting each other. It ripples through the energy of the world and Castiel can feel the thrum of it coursing through his veins, echoing in his grace. The shock waves of Michael and Lucifer's battle are going to cause disasters, he knows, but he feels free, like he's spent enough time worrying about this poor world. He smiles at the bird flying above him because he could join it in the sky, now. He can feel it, that he could fly again.

 

But he knows, now, what Dean had done. Knows that Dean never intended to make it out of this fight alive. So he stretches out wings that haven't been used in far too long and takes flight.

 

Castiel flies home, to wait there for his righteous man, his Prince.

 

*

 

Sam wakes in a forest.

 

“Hey there, Prince,” he hears from above him, and he sits up and turns to see Ruby sitting on a fallen tree. Sam doesn't answer, barely hears her, because he's _alone_. He's alone in his head like he hasn't been in almost two years and it's far too quiet and empty. The silence is his head is so all-encompassing that he barely notices the other figure walking up behind Ruby, putting its hands on her shoulder.

 

“Calm down Sam, I'm still here,” Lucifer teases, and Sam blinks rapidly. Lucifer's wearing the vessel he had taken while working out the deal with Sam. He's certain that vessel rotted long ago, but it's definitely Lucifer behind those eyes. He thinks idly that  once you’ve shared your head with someone, you can recognize them behind any face.

 

Sam slowly pulls himself to his feet, walks over and sits next to Ruby on the log. He wraps an arm around her waist, and Lucifer shifts so he has a hand on each of their shoulders.

 

“So, kids. Welcome to Purgatory. Where monsters go when they die,” he says with a smirk. The devil leans down and kisses Sam and Ruby in turn. “We'll have fun here, I'm sure.” And Sam misses sharing his body, still feels oddly raw around the edges where they've been torn soul from grace. But seeing Lucifer standing behind Ruby, he thinks that this could be just as good, in time.

 

“Yeah,” he finally says, finding a voice that feels so strange to use all on his own. “Yeah, I bet we will.”

 

*

 

Dean wakes to a white ceiling.

 

Dean thinks that this might be the most disorienting waking he's had, and that's saying a lot.

 

“Hello, Dean,” he hears Cas say, and whips his head to the side. Cas is sitting up against the headboard next to him, reading in the morning sunlight.

 

“Cas, what―”

 

“I woke up a moment before the end, and, well. I realized what you were doing and I thought I may as well wait for you here.” Dean frowns up at Cas.

 

“So Michael came through? This is heaven?”

 

“Yes, Dean. This is our heaven.” And Cas is smiling at him, happier than Dean's ever seen him and he can't help but pull his angel down and kiss him, wrap his arms around him. There's the dull thud of Cas' book falling to the floor before Dean's rolling them over and working their clothes off.

 

*

 

“Do you think I could have saved him?” Dean whispers, later, against Cas' neck. “If I'd just... I don't know, treated him differently, been there for him. Think things could've turned out differently?” Cas is still for a moment, then takes a deep breath and turns. He doesn't answer, only cups Dean's face in his hands and presses a gentle kiss to the crown of his head.

 

Dean's chest clenches. It's not an answer but it is, clear as day in the morning light streaming through the window. He closes his eyes and wishes he could forget because he knows he can't atone. It's far, far too late to atone.

 

*

 

They make it out of the bedroom and downstairs after a while, both of them curious to see what this house looks like. But they don't make it far.

 

Sam is sitting on a stool in the kitchen.

 

He looks up when Cas and Dean enter the room and grins.

 

“Morning, you two.” And he says it like it's nothing, like he isn't sitting in Dean's kitchen in heaven drinking coffee when the last thing Dean remembers is killing him.

 

Sam's beaming at them, bright as the sun, and Dean doesn't know how he's supposed to react. He looks at Cas and he's considering Sam, then turns and nods at Dean, the nod that means 'we're good, it's not a threat'. Dean has no idea what this thing is in front of them but this is how he always pictured Sammy all grown up, exactly how he always looked when Dean dreamt them happy and free of this Avatar shit. There's a ring on his finger and a framed photo of Sam and Jess sitting on the counter next to one of Dean and Cas. Sam's tall and broad and his hair's too long but he looks healthy and so, so happy and _bright_.

 

And Dean makes up his mind. He knows that this thing in front of them isn't Sam, can't be Sam, and he doesn't know what it is or how real it is but he can pretend. He'd rather have this, whatever it is, than not have Sam at all. He can convince himself it's real, given time. He's sure of it.

 

He takes Cas' hand in his and squeezes, then grins.

 

“Morning, Sammy.”


	2. the mythology of carnivàle

_Carnivàle_  is a show that ran for two seasons in 2003-2005. At the centre of the show's mythology is the existence of Avatars, people with supernatural powers who are forces of either good or evil. Avatars belong to either the House of Light or the House of Dark, and with only two exceptions, are always male. Avatars are also referred to as Creatures of Light and Creatures of Darkness.  
  
The eldest living member of the House is known as the Prophet, and the next in line is known as the Prince. The Prince must kill the Prophet of his House in order to receive his boon, giving him the full measure of his powers.  
  
The powers of Avatars are highly variable, and seemingly not tied to alignment. Some examples of powers seen in  _Carnivàle_  are telekinesis, physical and spiritual healing, psychic abilities, and the power to enter the dreams of others. Visions and prophetic dreams are also common in Avatars.  
  
Typically, the Prince is the firstborn son of the Prophet, but not in every case. Succession is a matter of bloodlines, and if the Prophet dies without having a son, the next Prince would be another male belonging to an Avataric bloodline. Non-Avatars belonging to a bloodline are known Vectori. Vectori can be male or female and may have some minor powers, and often show some amount of insanity. Giving birth to the firstborn son of an Avatar leaves the woman insane and barren. She can have any number of daughters with the Avatar prior to this, and these daughters would be Vectori.  
  
“The Prince Shall Rise” departs slightly from this mythology in places. Afterall, Supernatural is all about breaking the rules. This is no exception.

**Author's Note:**

> there are a lot of you guys who deserve thanks for this. i wouldn't have had the confidence to do this at all without your encouragement. askee and dylan especially, you guys were the first ones to bribe encourage me to actually make this into a full fic instead of snippets on my tumblr. this wouldn't have happened without you guys <3 and askee, you were a huge help with brainstorming and working out the mythology. thanks to mel for the beta (and the liveblogging in the margins, i got a huge kick out of that). huge thanks for savannah for agreeing to make art for me. i could not be more flattered, honestly. 
> 
> i am very excited to see what you guys think :)


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